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> over the very long term, automation probably has played a role in limiting manufacturing’s share of employment in the U.S. Factories really have become more a
by aodin 7y ago
> over the very long term, automation probably has played a role in limiting manufacturing’s share of employment in the U.S. Factories really have become more advanced and efficient since, say, the 1970s.
Can anyone at Slate read a chart? US employment in manufacturing as a percentage of non-farm labor dropped from 32% post-WW2 to less than 10% today [1]. This change didn't start "sometime in the 1970s", but has been a consistent downward trend post-WW2. The low hanging fruit of automation (from mechanical feedback mechanisms to programmable logic controllers) are all pre-1970s inventions.
And so what if different jobs are created for those that are lost? The article itself admits those jobs will either be lower paying or require more advanced education. Job re-training is mostly a myth [2]. No matter what, an entire generation of unemployed will suffer. I grew up in Detroit. I know what happens when the jobs base shifts.
[1] https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2014/04/the-decline-of-manufacturing/ https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2014/04/the-decline-of-manuf...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/magazine/retraining-jobs-unemployment.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/23/magazine/retraining-jobs-...
- dao- 7y ago> And so what if different jobs are created for those that are lost? The article itself admits those jobs will either be lower paying or require more advanced education And even this will only last so long. With ever more advanced robotics and AI, there will be fewer and fewer possible lower paying jobs as well as advanced jobs that average Joe could even be educated for. Humans have finite muscle power and brain capacity. Is it not obvious that as technology becomes more potent, we'll reach a point where it just doesn't make sense anymore to make the masses spend their days working bullshit jobs?
- bufferoverflow 7y agoYes, self-driving cars and trucks will very quickly unemploy 3.5 million truck drivers (US only), 3 million Uber drivers, 1.4 million Lyft drivers. And that's just one area. I agree on retraining. An average driver will not become a surgeon or a programmer (or whatever other hard-to-automate jobs are left).
- sedachv 7y ago> Job re-training is mostly a myth Job re-training is more than a myth, it is another Reagan-era privatization scam, designed to funnel public money to private for-profit training centers and trade schools. Gordon Lafer's _The Job Training Charade_ is a great book on the subject.